HE NEW WORLD 



WITTER BYNNER 





Class 

Book 

CopyrightN^_ 



COPMRIGHT DEPOSHV 



The New World 



BY WITTER BYNNER 


AN ODE TO 


HARVARD 


AND OTHER 


POEMS 


HGER 




THE LITTLE 


KING 


THE NEW WOBLD 



The New World 

by WITTER BYNNER 



NEW YORK 

MITCHELL KENNERLEY 

191S 



COPYRIGHT I915 BY 
MITCHELL KENNERLEY 






The greater part of this poem was delivered 
before the Harvard Chapter of the Phi Beta 
Kappa Society in June, 1911 ; several passages 
from it have appeared in Poetry, and others in 
The Bellman, the Boston Evening Transcript 
and the American Magazine, 



Printed in America 

JUN-5I9I5 

'GU406167 



Celia 



The New World 



Celia was laughing. Hopefully I said: 
"How shall this beauty that we share, 
This love, remain aware 
Beyond our happy breathing of the air? 
How shall it be fulfilled and perfected? . . . 
If you were dead, 
How then should I be comforted?" 

But Celia knew instead: 
"He who finds beauty here, shall find it there." 

A halo gathered round her hair. 
I looked and saw her wisdom bare 
The living bosom of the countless dead. 
. . . And there 
I laid my head. 

Again when Celia laughed, I doubted her and 
said: 
"Life must be led 



8 T he New World 

In many ways more difficult to see 

Than this immediate way 

For you and me. 

We stand together on our lake's edge, and the 

mystery 
Of love has made us one, as day is made of 

night and night of day. 
Aware of one identity 
Within each other, we can say: 
*I shall be everything you are.* . . . 
We are uplifted till we touch a star. 
We know that overhead 
Is nothing more austere, more starry, or more 

deep to understand 
Than is our union, human hand in hand. 
.... But over our lake come strangers — a 

crowded launch, a lonely sailing boy. 
A mile away a train bends by. In every car 
Strangers are travelling, each with particular 
And unkind preference like ours, with privacy 
Of understanding, v/ith especial joy 
Like ours. CeUa, Celia, why should there be 
Distrust between ourselves and them, disunity? 
.... How careful we have been 
To trim this little circle that we tread, 



The New World 



To set a bar 

To strangers and forbid them!— Are they not 

as we, 
Our very likeness and our nearest kin? 
How can we shut them out and let stars in?" 
She looked along the lake. And when I 

heard her speak, 
The sun fell on the boy's white sail and her 

white cheek. 
*'I touch them all through you," she said. "I 

cannot know them now 
Deeply and truly as my very own, except 

through you, 
Except through one or two 
Interpreters. 
But not a moment stirs 

Here between us, binding and interweaving us, 
That does not bind these others to our care." 

The sunlight fell in glory on her hair. . . . 
And then said Celia, radiant, when I held her 

near: 
*They who find beauty there, shall find it here." 

And on her brow, 
When I heard Celia speak. 
Cities were populous 



lo The New World 

With peace and oceans echoed glories in her ear 
And from her risen thought 
Her lips had brought, 
As from some peak 

Down through the clouds, a mountain-air 
To guide the lonely and uplift the weak. 
"Record it all," she told me, "more than 

merely this. 
More than the shine of sunset on our heads, 

more than a kiss. 
More than our rapt agreement and delight 
Watching the mountain mingle with the 

night. . . . 
Tell that the love of two incurs 
The love of multitudes, makes way 
And welcome for them, as a solitary star 
Brings on the great array. 
Go make a lovers' calendar," 
She said, "for every day." 

And when the sun had put away 
His dazzle, over the shadowy firs 
The solitary star came out. ... So on some 

night 
To eyes of youth shall come my light 
And hers. 



II 



**Where are you bound, O solemn voyager?" 
She laughed one day and asked me in her mirth : 
**Where are you from? ^ 

Why are you come?" 
.... The questions beat like tapping of a 

drum; 
And how could I be dumb, 
I who have bugles in me ? Fast 
The answer blew to her, 
For all my breath was worth. . . . 
**As a bird comes by grace of spring. 
You are my journey and my wing — 
And into your heart, O Celia, 
My heart has flown, to sing 
Solemn and long 
A most undaunted song." 

This was the song that she herself had taught 

me how to sing : 
... As immigrants come toward America 

II 



12 The New World 

On their continual ships out of the past, 

So on my ship America have I, by birth, 

Come forth at last 

From all the bitter corners of the earth. 

And I have ears to hear the westward wind 

blowing 
And I have eyes to look beyond the scope 
Of sea 

And I have hands to touch the hands 
Of shipmates who are going 
Wherever I go and the grace of knowing 
That what for them is hope 
Is hope for me. 

I come from many times and many lands, 
I look toward life and all that it shall hold, 
Past bound and past divide. 
And I shall be consoled 
By a continent as wide 
As the round invisible sky. 
. . . . "The unseen shall become the seen. . . . 
O Celia, be my Spanish Queen I 
The Genoan am I!*' 
And Celia cried: 
"My jewels, they are yours. 
Yours for the journey. Use them well. 



The New World 13 

Go find the new world, win the shores 

Of which the old books tell ! 

.... Yet will they listen, poet? Will they 
sail with you? 

Will they not call you dreamer of a dream? 

Will they not laugh at you, because you seem 

Concerned with words that people often say 

And deeds they never do?" 

The bright sails of my caravel shook sea- 
ward in reply: 

"Though I be told 

A thousand facts to hold 

Me back, though the old boundary 

Rise up like hatred in my way, 

Though fellow-voyagers cry, 

^Alie!'— 

Here as I come with heaven at my side 

None of the weary words they say 

Remain with me, 

I am borne like a wave of the sea 

Toward worlds to be. . . . 

And, young and bold, 

I am happier than they — 

The timid unbelievers who grow old I'* 



14 The New World 

She interceded: "How impatient, how un- 
kind 
You are ! What secret do you know 
To keep you young? 

Age comes with keen and accurate advance 
Against youth's lightly handled lance. 
Age is an ancient despot that has wrung 
All hearts." . . . My answer was the song for- 
ever sung: 
*'This that I need to know I know — 
Onpouring and perpetual immigrants, 
We join a fellowship beyond America 
Yet in America. . . . 
Beyond the touch of age, my Celia, 
In you, in me, in everyone, we join God's 

growing mind. 
For in no separate place or time, or soul, we find 
Our meaning. In one mingled soul reside 
All times and places. On a tide 
Of mist and azure air 

We journey toward that soul, through circum- 
stance, 
Until at last we fully care and dare 
To make within ourselves divinity." 



The New World 15 

"And what of all the others," Celia said, 
"Who ventured brave as you? What of the 

dead?'' 
Again I saw the halo in her hair 
And said: "The dead sail forward, hid behind 
This wave that we ourselves must mount to find 
The eternal way. 
Adventurers of long ago 
Seeking a richer gain than earthy gold, 
They have left for us, half-told. 
Their guesses of the port, more numerous and 

blind 
Than their unnumbered and forgotten faces. 
.... And though today, as then, 
Death is a wind blowing them forward out of 

sight and out of mind, 
Yet in familiar and in unfamiliar places 
Inquiring by what means I may 
The destination of the wind 
Of death, I have found signs and traces 
Of the way they go 

And with a quicker heart I have beheld again 
In visions, from my ship at sea. 
The great new world confronting me, 



1 6 The New World 

Where, yesterday, 

Today, tomorrow, dwell my countrymen." 



And then I looked away, 
Over the pasture and the valley, to the New 

Hampshire town. . . . 
And my heart's acclaim went down, 
To Florida, Wisconsin, California, 
And brought a good report to Celia : 
"My ship America, 
This whole wide-timbered land. 
Well captained and well manned. 
Ascends the sea 
Of time, carrying me 
And many passengers. 
And every cabin stirs 
With the pulsing of its engine over the sway of 

time. 
Yes, every state and city, every village, every 

farm. 
And every heart and everyone's right arm. 
.... Celia, hold out your hand. 
Or anyone in any field or street, hold out your 

hand — 



The New World 17 

And I can see it pulse the massive climb 

And dip 

Of this America, 

My ship!" 

"Why make your ship so small? 
Can your America contain them all?" 

How wisely I replied 
In the province of my pride : 
**But these are my own shipmates, these 
Who share my ship America with me ! 
.... On many seas 

On other ships, even the ancient ships of Greece, 
Have other immigrants set sail for peace. 
But these are my own shipmates whom I see 
At hand — these are my company." 

"What have you said," she cried, 
"Thinking you knew? 
Whom have you called your shipmates? You 

were wrong! 
Your ship is strong 
With a more various crew 
Than any one man's country could provide. 
To make it ride 
So high and manifold and so complete. 



1 8 The New World 



This is the engine-beat 

Of life itself, the ship of ships. 

There is no other ship among the stars than 

this. 
The wind of death is a bright kiss 
Upon the lips 

Of every immigrant, as upon yours and mine — 
Theirs is the stinging brine 
And sun and open sea. 
And theirs the arching sky, eternity." 

And Celia had my homage. I was wrong. 
Immigrants all, one ship we ride, 
Man and his bride 
The journey through. 
O let it be with a bridal-song ! . . . 
"My shipmates are as many as eternity is long: 

The unborn and the living and the dead 

And, Celia, you!" 



Ill 



That midnight when the moon was tall 
I walked alone by the white lake — yet with a 

vanished race 
And with a race to come. To walk with dead 

men is to pray, 
To walk with men unborn — to find the way. 



I have seen many days. That night I 
watched them all. 
I have seen many a sign and trace 
Of beauty and of hope: 
An elm at night; an arrowy waterfall; 
The illimitable round unbroken scope 
Of life; a friend's unfrightened dying face. 

Though I have heard the cry of fear in 
crowded loneliness of space, 
Dead laughter from the lips of lust, 
Anger from fools, falsehood from sycophants, 
(My fear, my lips, my anger, my disgrace) 

19 



20 The New World 

Though I have held a golden cup and tasted 

rust, 
Seen cities rush to be defiled 
By the bright-fevered and consuming sin 
Of making only coin and lives to count it in, 
Yet once I watched with Celia, 
Watched on a ferry an Italian child, 
One whom America 
Had changed. 

His cheek was hardy and his mouth was frail 
For sweetness, and his eyes were opening wild 
As with wonder at an unseen figure carrying a 

grail. 
Perhaps he faced, as I did in his glance. 
The spirit of the living dead who, having 

ranged 
Through long reverses, forward without fail 
Carry deliverance 
From privilege and disinheritance. 
Until their universal soul shall prove 
The only answer to the ache of love. 

''America was wistful in that child," 
Said Celia afterwards — and smiled 
Because all three of us were immigrants, 



The New World 21 

Each voyaging into each. 

Over the city-roofs, the sun awoke 
Bright in the dew 

Of a marvellous morning, while she spoke 
Of the sun, the dew, the wonder, in a child: 
"He who devises tyranny," she said, 
'^Denies the resurrection of the dead. 
Beneath his own degree degrades himself, 
Invades himself with ughness and wars. 
But he who knows all men to be himself, 
Part of his own experiment and reach, 
Humbles and amplifies himself 
To build and share a tenement of stars." 



Once when we broke a loaf of bread 
And shared the honey, Ceha said: 
"To share all beauty as the interchanging dust. 
To be akin and kind and to entrust 
All men to one another for their good, 
Is to have heard and understood, 
And carried to the common enemy 
In you and me. 
The ultimatum of democracy." 



22 The New World 

"But to what goal?'' I wondered. And I 
heard her happy speech: 
"It is my faith that God is our own dream 
Of perfect understanding of the soul. 
It is my passion that, alike through me 
And every member of eternity, 
The source of God is sending the same stream. 
It is my peace that when my life is whole, 
God's life shall be completed and supreme." 

And once when I had made complaint 
About America, she warned me: "Be not faint 
Of heart, but bold to see the soul's advance. 
The chances are not far nor few. . . . 
Face beauty," Celia said, "then beauty faces 
you." 



And under all things her advice was true. 
. . . . Discovering what she knew, 
Not only on a mountainous place 
Or by the solving sea 
But through the world I have seen endless 

beauty, as the number grows 
Of those who, in a child cheated of simple joy 



The New World 23 

Or in a wasted rose 

Or in a lover's immemorial lonely eyes 

Or in machines that quicken and destroy 

A multitude or in a mother's unregarded grace 

And broken heart, through all the skies 

And all humanity, 

Seek out the single spirit, face to face, 

Find it, become a conscious part of it 

And know that something pure and exquisite, 

Although inscrutably begun, 

Surely exalts the many into one. 



**I shall not lose, nor you," 
I said to Celia. Over the world the morning- 
dew 
Moved Hke a hymn and sang to us : "Go now, 

fulfill 
Your destiny and joy; 
Each in the other, both in that Italian boy. 
And he in you, like flowers in a hill!" 
.... She was the nearness of imperfect God 
On whom in her perfection was at work. 
Lest I should shirk 



24 The New World 

My share, I asked her for His blessing and His 

nod — 
And His breath was in her shining hair like the 

wind in golden-rod. 

"But, Celia, Celia, tell me what to be," 
I asked, "and what to do. 
To keep your faith in me. 
To witness mine in you I" 

She answered: "Dare to see 
In every man and woman everywhere 
The making of us two. 
See none that we can spare 
From the creation of our soul. 
Swear to be whole. 
Let not your faith abate. 
But establish it in persons and exalt it in the 



IV 



Celia has challenged me. . . . 
Be my reply, 

Challenge to poets who, with tinkling tricks, 
Meet life and pass it by. 
"Beauty," they ask, "in politics?'* 
"If you put it there," say I. 

Wide the new world had opened its bright 

gates. 
And a woman who had heard of the new world 
All her life long and had saved her pence 
By hard frugality, to be her competence 
In the free home, came eagerly in nineteen 

seven 
Into These States, 
With her little earnings furled 
In a large handkerchief — ^but with a heart 
Too rich to be contained, for she had done her 

part: 
She had come 

25 



26 The New World 

With faith to Heaven. 

But there was a panic that year, 

No work, no wages in These States. 

And a great fear 

Seized on the immigrant. And so she took her 
pence 

All of them, furled 

Safe in her handkerchief, to a government 
cashier — 

A clerk in the post-office. (And he relates 

Her errand as a joke, yet tenderly 

For I watched him telling me.) 

. . . Not knowing English, being dumb, 

She had brought with her a thin-faced lad 

To interpret. And he made it clear. 

While she unfurled 

Her handkerchief and poured the heap of coins 
out of her hand. 

That *she was giving all she had — 

To be used no matter how, you under- 
stand' . . . 

Lest harm should come to the new world. 

O doubters of democracy. 
Undo your mean contemptuous art ! — 



The New World 27 

More than in all that poetry has said, 

More than in mound or marble, in the living 

live the dead. 
The past has done its reproductive part. 
Hear now the cry of beauty's present needs, 
Of comrades levelling a thousand creeds. 
Finding futility 

In conflict, selfishness, hardness of heart! 
For love has many poets who can see 
Ascending in the sky 
Above the shadowy passes 
The everlasting hills : humanity. 
O doubters of the time to be. 
What is this might, this mystery. 
Moving and singing through democracy. 
This music of the masses 
And of you and me — 
But purging and dynamic poetry ! — 
What is this eagerness from sea to sea 
But young divinity ! 



I have seen doubters, with a puny joy. 
Accept amusement for their little while 



28 The New World 

And feed upon some nourishing employ 

But otherwise shake their wise heads and 
smile — 

Protesting that one man can no more move the 
mass 

For good or ill 

Than could the ancients kindle the sun 

By tying torches to a wheel and rolling it down- 
hill. 
But not the wet circumference of the seas 

Can quench the living light in even these, 

These who forget, 

Eating the fruits of earth, 

That nothing ever has been done 

To spur the spirit of mankind. 

Which has not come to pass 

Forth from the heart and mind 

Of some one man, through other men birth 
after birth. 

In thoughts that dare 

And in deeds that share 

And in a will resolved to find 

A finer breath 

Born in the deep maternity of death. 



The New World 29 

... If these be ecstasies of youth, 

Yet they are news of which all time has 

need. 
If they be lies, tell them yourselves and heed 
How poets' twice-told lies become the truth ! 



There was a poet Celia loved who, hearing all 

around 
The multitudinous tread 
Of common majesty, 
(A hearty immigrant was he!) 
Made of the gathering insurgent sound 
Another continent of poetry? 
His name is writ in his blood, mine and yours. 
.... "And when he celebrates 
These States," 

She said, "how can Americans worth their salt 
But listen to the wavesong on their shores. 
The waves and Walt, 

And hear the windsong over rock and wood, 
The winds and Walt, 
And let the mansong enter at their gates 
And know that it is good!'* 



30 The New World 

Walt Whitman, by his perfect friendliness 
Has let me guess 
That into Celia, into me, 
He and unnumbered dead have come 
To be our intimates. 
To make of us their home 
Commingling earth and heaven. . . . 
That by our true and mutual needs 
We shall at last be shriven 
Of these hypocrisies and jealous creeds 
And petty separate fates — 
That I in every man and he in me, 
Together making God, are gradually creating 

whole 
The single soul. 

Somebody called Walt Whitman — 
Dead! 

He is alive instead. 
Alive as I am. When I lift my head, 
His head is lifted. When his brave mouth 

speaks. 
My lips contain his word. And when his rocker 

creaks 
Ghostly in Camden, there I sit in it and watch 

my hand grow old 



The New World 31 

And take upon my constant lips the kiss of 

younger truth. . . . 
It is my joy to tell and to be told 
That he, in all the world and me, 
Cannot be dead, 
That I, in all the world and him, youth after 

youth 
Shall lift my head. 



There is a vision, Celia, in your face. . . . 

Beauty had lived in India like a mad 

And withdrawn prophetess, in Greece had set 

her pace 
Between a laurelled lad 

And a singing maiden, pitched her purple tents 
In Rome, leaned with a mother's fears 
In Bethlehem to nurse a son of God upon her 

breast 
And learned the tender loneliness of tears, 
Awhile had hid in Europe, sad 
In the shadow of magnificence, 
Brooding, finding no rest. 
And then of a sudden she had run forth from 

her hiding-place, 
Rejoicing, desperate, intense 
Against her enemy, a rod 
Of fire in her hand, her tresses crowned 
With liberty, her purpose bold and bound 

32 



The New World 33 

That every son should be a son of God. 

And then she wept for France. . . . But once 
more clad 

In stars, she beckons to America, the land 

Of hope. Behold her stand 

With her bright finger scorning armaments 

And on her lips the unconquerable common 
sense 

Of love calling the world to challenge and con- 
found 

The empty idols of her enemy! 

. . . Comforter of experience, 

Enlightener of old events, 

Beauty forever dares to widen and retrace 

Her way, singing the marches of democracy. 

Carrying banners of the time to be. 

Calling companions to her high command. 

There is a banner, Celia, in your hand! 



Though sons, whose fathers bled 
For freedom, struggle now instead 
With heavier weapons and with weary-waking 
head 



34 The New World 

For bread; 

Though sons, whose fathers fought in other 

ages 
For fame, bear in their hearts today the scar 
Of entering where the laborer sleeps 
And rousing him with masterly inquiry where 

he keeps 
His wages: 
Though all the cunning coil of trade appear a 

baser thing 
Than battles are, 
O trace through time the orbit of this troubled 

star! 
. . . See, from afar off, how the valiant few 
Of old, each with a helmet on his head, 
Practiced their inconclusive feud 
Upon no battlefield of unfeeling dew — 
But on the prostrate stillness of the multitude] 
Even their knightliest prowess they must rear, 
Tamerlane, Alexander, Arthur, every king. 
Upon the common clay from which they spring. 
For see how slaves, on whom war falls, renew 
The strength of war and disappear 
Year after year 



The New World 35 

Into the earth — fulfilling it to form and bear 
Democracy ! 

Look nearer now along the modern sky 
And watch where every man fastens the electric 

wing 
Upon his foot, that he may leave his little sod 
Of ignorance ! 

And look where, by and by, 
Taking his high inheritance, 
He knows himself and other men as the winged 
self of God! 

The times are gone when only few were fit 
To view with open vision the sublime, 
When for the rest an altar-rail sufficed 
To obscure the democratic Christ. . . . 
Perceiving now his gift, demanding it, 
The benison of common benefit, 
Men, women, all. 
Interpreters of time, 

Have found that lordly Christ apocryphal. 
While Christ the comrade comes again — no 

wraith 
Of virtue in a far-off faith 
But a companion hearty, natural. 



36 The New World 

Who sorrows with indomitable eyes 

For his mistreated plan 

To share with all men the upspringing sod, 

The unfolding skies — 

Not God who made Himself the Man, 

But a man who proved man's unused worth- 

And made himself the God. 



Once you had listened, Celia, to a stream 
And lain a long time, silent as a sleeper. 
And then your word arrived as from beyond 
Your body, bending with its breath the frond 
Of a fern. You whispered to the listening 

stream : 
**As evil Is yet wider than we dream. 
So good is deeper." . . . 

O how I try to bring 
Your voice to say in mine that word ! — to sing 
Clear-hearted as a mountain-spring 
Of the wonders we see deepening! 



Time cannot bury what the blest have 
thought. 
For there is resurrection far and near. 



The New World 37 

Often it seems as though a single day had 

brought 
To each bright hemisphere 
Courage to cast 
The servitude 

And blinded glory of the past 
Away and in a flash had taught 
Purpose and fortitude. . . . 

But not so swiftly are we wrought. 
By many single days we learn to live, 
By many flashes read the vision clear 
That every heart is equal debtor 
To its own and every breast 
For the good before the better, 
The better toward the best. 

When we who hugged awhile the golden 
bowl 
Of greed behold it now a sieve 
Through which is drained invisibly 
A nectar we were saving for the soul, 
Then not in vain have many gone 
The empty ways of stealth 
Seeking a firmer base than honesty 
For building happiness upon. . . . 



38 The New World 

And by the ancient agonizing test 
We have slowly guessed 
That a just portion of the whole 
Is all there is of wealth. 

When those who labor wake 
And care . . . 
And through the tingling air 
A dead man's voice, by living men renewed 
And women, dares democracy 
To self-respect: "Open the lands! Let man- 
kind share 
The ample livehhood they bear !*' — 
Then not in vain have the poor known distress, 
Teaching the rich that happiness 
Is something no man may — possess. 

Little by little we, whose fathers fought 
Impassioned, are ashamed 
Of the familiar thought 
That waste of blood is honourable feud: 
Little by little from the wondering land 
The agitation and the lie of war 
Shall pass ; for in the heart disclaimed 
Murder shall be abandoned by the hand. 

And while there grows a fellowship of un- 
shed blood 



The New World 39 

To stop the wound and heal the scar 

Of time, with sudden glorious aptitude 

Woman assumes her part. Her pity in a flood 

Flings down the gate. 

She has been made to wait 

Too long, undreaming and untaught 

The touch and beauty of democracy. 

But, entering now the strife 

In which her saving sense is due. 

She watches and she grows aware. 

Holding a child more dear than property, 

That the many perish to empower the few, 

That homeless politics have split apart 

The common country of the human heart. 

(Your heart is beating, Celia, like a song!) 

.... For man has need 

Not merely of the lips that kiss and hands that 

feed 
But of the hearts that heed 
And of the minds that speed 
Like rain. 

Loving a mother or a wife. 
Let him release her tenderness, to make him 

strong. 



40 The New World 

And use her beauty and receive her law 
The very life of life. 



In temporary pain 
The age is bearing a new breed 
Of men and women, patriots of the world 
And one another. Boundaries in vain, 
Birthrights and countries, would constrain 
The old diversity of seed 
To be diversity of soul. 

O mighty patriots, maintain 
Your loyalty! — till flags unfurled 
For battle shall arraign 

The traitors who unfurled them, shall remain 
And shine over an army with no slain, 
And men from every nation shall enroll 
And women — in the hardihood of peace I 

What can my anger do but cease? 
Whom shall I fight and who shall be my enemy 
When he is I and I am he ? 

Let me have done with that old God outside 
Who watched with preference and answered 
prayer, 



The New World 41 

The Godhead that replied 

Now here, now there, 

Where heavy cannon were 

Or coins of gold! 

Let me receive communion with all men, 

Acknowledging our one and only soul I 

For not till then 
Can God be God, till we ourselves are whole. 



VI 



Once in a smoking-car I saw a scene 
That made my blood stand still. . . . 
While the sun smouldered in a great ravine, 
And I, with elbow on the window-sill, 
Was watching the dim ember of the west, 
Half-heard, but poignant as a bell 
For fire, there came a moan; the voice of one 
in hell. 
I turned. Across the car were two young 
men. 
Yet hardly more than boys, 
French by their look, and brothers. 
And one was moaning on the other's breast. 
His face was hid away. I could not tell 
What words he said, half English and half 

French. I only knew 
Both men were suffering, not one but two. 

And then that face came into view. 
Gaunt and unshaved, with shadows and wild 
eyes, 

42 



The New World 43 

A face of madness and of desolation. And his 
cries, 

For all his mate could do, 

Rang out, a shrill and savage noise. 

And tears ran down the stubble of his cheek. 
The other face was younger, clean and sad 

With the manful stricken beauty of a lad 

Who had intended always to be glad. 

. . . . The touch of his compassion,, like a 
mother's. 

Pitied the madman, soothed him and caressed. 

And then I heard him speak. 

In a low voice: "Mon frere, mon frere! 

Calme-toi! Right here's your place." 

And, opening his coat, he pressed 

Upon his heart the wanderer's face 

And smoothed the tangled hair. 
After a moment peaceful there. 

The maniac screamed — struck out and fell 

Across his brother's arm. Love could not quell 

His anger. Wrists together high in air 

He rose and with a yell 

Brought down his handcuffs toward his broth- 
er's face — 

But his hands were pinned below his waist, 



44 The New World 

By a burly, silent sheriff, and some hideous 

thing was bound 
Around his arms and feet 
And he was laid upon the narrow seat. 
And then that sound, 
That moan 

Of one forsaken and alone I 
"Seigneur! Le createur du del et de la terre! 
Forgotten me! Forgotten me !" 
.... And when the voice grew weak 
The brother leaned again, embraced 
The huddled body. But a shriek 
Repulsed him: ''Non! Detache-moi! I don't 

care 
For you. Non ! Tu es I'homme qui m'a trahi I 
Non! Tu n'es pas mon frere!" 

But as often as that stricken mind would fill 
With the great anguish and the rush of hate, 
The boy, his young eyes older, older, 
Would curve his shoulder 
To the other's pain and hold that haunted face 

close to his face 
And say: "O wait! 
You will know me better by and by. 



The New World 45 

Mon pauvre petit, be still 1 

Right here's your place.'' 

.... The gleam ! and then the blinded stare, 

The cry : 

"Non, tu n'es pas mon frerel" 



I saw myself, myself, as blind 
As he. And something smothers 
My reason. And I do not know my broth- 
ers. . . . 
But every day declare : 
"Non, tu n'es pas mon frerel'' 



But in the outcome, I can see. . . . 
Closer than any brother 
Shall they be to one another 
And to me. 

Closer than mother, father, daughter, son, 
O closer than a lover shall they be. 
When madness like a storm shall roll 
Away, leaving illumination. Within everyone 
The nearness has begun 
Toward some loved life and toward the soul 



46 The New World 

Perceived therein: the elemental ache to be 

made whole 
With beauty and with love. — O I have ached 

and longed in the embrace 
Of one I love to be undone 
Of differences, to yield and run 
Within the very blood and being of my dear, 
One body and one face, 
One spirit in all space, 
Mingled and indissoluble. And I have felt a 

mortal tear 
Smart on my lids, when I had been so near 
To Celia that I knew not which was I, 
Yet the day returned between us and the sky 
Held distances that were not clear 
To us and we were two again that had been 

almost one. 

A mother yields herself to enter 
Her child, who nestles close and sleeps 
With all his wisdom pressed 
For comfort to her breast. 
I can remember my relinquishment 
Of consciousness and care, 



The New World 47 

Almost of life, upon my mother's heart — the 

great content 
Of being there. 

And then I loved a starry boy of three, 
Who looked about him, smiled and took to me, 
Held out his arms and chose me among men 
For his companion, to confide 
His smiles in and to be 
At ease with. Closely by my side 
He sat and touched the world, to see 
If it were solid and worth touching. When he 

died, 
I too was dead . . . and yet I hear him say, 
Laughing within my heart today: 
*'Lo, being you, 

And having lived your years, this will I do. 
And this, and this!" 

I have my boy again. 
I greet him nearer than a kiss. 

And so, from birth to death, out of confusion 
The secret creeps 
Across the deeps 
From its eternal centre 



48 The New World 

In the soul. 

Communion is the cause and the conclusion 

And the unfailing sacrament 

Not only of the mystical frequenter 

Of temples, where the body of the dead 

Creates divine 

The living body through the bread 

And wine, 

But God discovers and discovers, 

To make it whole. 

His beauty in all lovers. 

Body and body, soul and soul, combine 

His one identity with yours and mine. 

I know a fellow in a steel-mill who, intent 
Upon his labours and his happiness, had meant 
In his own wisdom to be blest, 
Had made his own unaided way 
To schooling, opportunity. 
Success. And then he loved and married. And 

his bride, 
After a brief year, died. 
I went to him to see 
If I might comfort him. The comfort came to 

me. 



The New World 49 

''David," I said, ''under the temporary ache 
There is unwonted nearness with the dead." 
I felt his two hands take 
The sentence from me with a grip 
Forged in the mills. He told me that his tears 

were shed 
Before her breath went. After that, instead 
Of grief, she came herself. He felt her slip 
Into his being like a miracle, her lip 
Whispering on his, to slake 
His need of her. — "And in the night I wake 
With wonder and I find my bride 
And her embrace there in our bed. 
Within my very being, not outside! 
. . . . We have each other more, much 

more," 
He said, "now than before. 
This very moment while I shake 
Your hand, my friend. 
Not only I, 
But she is touching you — and laughs with me 

because I cried 
For her. . . . People would think me crazy if 

I told. 



50 The New World 

But something In what you said made me bold 
To let you meet my bride !'' 

It was not madness. David's eye 
Was clear and open-seeing. 
His life 
Had faced in death and understood In his 

young wife, 
As I when Celia died, 
The secret of God's being. 



VII 

Among good citizens, I praise 
Again a woman whom I knew and know, 
A citizen whom I have seen 
Most heartily, most patiently 
Making God's mind, 
A citizen who, dead, 

Yet shines across her white-remembered ways 
As the nearness of a light across the snow. . . . 
My Celia, mystical, serene. 
Laughing and kind. 

And still I hear among New Hampshire trees 
Her happy speech: 
"Democracy is beauty's inmost reach." 
And still her voice announces plain 
The mystic gain 
Of friends from adversaries and of peace from 

pain : 
Beauty's control 

SI 



52 The New World 

Of every soul 

Surrendering in victory. 

.... Well I recall how she explained to me 

With sunlight on her head 

When last we looked, as many times before, 

Over those hundred foothills rolling like the 

sea. 
''Where mountains are, door after door 
Unlocks within me, opens wide 
And leaves no difference in my heart," she said, 
"From anything outside." 

Not only Celia, speaking, taught me these 
The tenets of her beauty; but her life was such 
That I believed as by a palpable touch 
That heals and tends. 

Not better nor more learned nor more wise 
In many ways than others of my friends, 
Celia was happier. 

Their excellences and their destinies 
Became, contributing, a part of her, 
Anointed her awhile among all men 
An eminent citizen, 
A generous arbiter. 



The New World 53 

Not less bereaved than others of my friends, 
Cella was lovelier. 

And now, though something of her dies, 
Her heart of love assembles and transcends 
Laws, letters, personalities. 
Beginnings, passages and ends. 

Often I start and look beside me for the stir 
Of her sweet presence come again. 
I have cried out to her. 
So vivid has begun 
Some dear-remembered sentence in her voice. 

If a deluded wakeful thrush. 
Seeing a light in a window, sings to the sun, 
Yet he shall soon rejoice ; 
When the great dawn of day 
Opens a thousand windows into one. 

On a path where thrushes wake — called 
Celia's Way — 
Time after time 
She led me high among the rills. 

And always when I pass again our chosen 
pine 



54 The New World 

And feel upon my brow the fine 

Soft pressure of an unseen web and brush 

It from my face expectantly and climb 

Wide-eyed into the mountains' windy hush, 

Among the green and healing hills 

I have found Celia. 

For the morning fills 

With her and afternoon and twilight. She is 

always there 
As sweet within me as the intimate air. 

We are together still in the deep solitude 
Which is the essence of all companies, 
Not in its loneliness but in its brood 
Of presences, the dawn chanting with birds, the 

trees 
Translating unremembered memories 
Of the returning dead. 

And Celia, who has learned to die, 
Is well aware — and so through her am I — 
That, one by one interpreted. 
All hopes and pains and powers 
Are hers and mine to try 
On every star, through every age. 
.... And, still together, on this page 



The New World 55 

We quote the sun-dial of the sage: 

'7 number none but happy hours/* 

For we remember still 

The morning-hymn we heard: "Ye shall fulfill 

Your destiny and joy, 

Each in the other, both in that Italian boy 

And he in you, like flowers in a hill." 



She said to me one day, where a hill renewed 
its flowers, 
"How easy it would be to live and die 
If we would only see the ultimate 
Oneness of life, quicken 

Our hearts with it and know that they who hate 
And strike become by their own blow the 
stricken!" .... 

"A stranger might be God," the Hindus cry. 
But Celia said, importunate: 
"Everyone must be God and you and I." 



VIII 

Almost the body leads the laggard soul; bid- 
ding it see 

The beauty of surrender, the tranquillity 

Of fusion with the earth. The body turns to 
dust 

Not only by a sudden whelming thrust, 

Or at the end of a corrupting calm. 

But oftentimes anticipates and, entering flowers 
and trees 

Upon a hillside or along the brink 

Of streams, encounters instances 

Of its eventual enterprise ; 

Inhabits the enclosing clay, 

In rhapsody is caught away 

On a great tide 

Of beauty, to abide 

Translated through the night and day 

Of time and, by the anointing balm 

Of earth, to outgrow decay. 

S6 



The New World 57 

Hark in the wind — the word of silent lips ! 
Look where some subtle throat, that once had 

wakened lust, 
Lies clear and lovely now, a silver link 
Of change and peace ! 
Hollows and willows and a river-bed, 
Anemones and clouds. 
Raindrops and tender distances 
Above, beneath. 
Inherit and bequeath 
Our far-begotten beauty. We are wed 
With many kindred who were seeming dead. 
Only the delicate woven shrouds 
Are vanished, beauty thrown aside 
To honor and uncover 
A deeper beauty — as the veil that slips 
Breathless away between a lover 
And his bride. ^ 



So, by the body, may the soul surmise 
The beauty of surrender, the tranquillity 
Of fusion: when, set free 
From semblance of mortality, 
Yielding its dust the richer to endue 



58 The New World 

A common avenue 

Of earth for other souls to journey through, 

It shall put on in purer guise 

The mutual beauty of its destiny. 

And who shall fear for his identity 
And who shall cling to the poor privacy 
Of incompleteness, when the end explains 
That what pride forfeits, beauty gains! 



Therefore, O spirit, as a runner strips 
Upon a windy afternoon, 
Be unencumbered of what troubles you — 
Arise with grace 
And greatly go ! — the wind upon your face ! 

Grieve not for the invisible transported brow 
On which Hke leaves the dark hair grew. 
Nor for those lips of laughter that are now 
Laughing in sun and dew. 
Nor for those limbs that, fallen low 
And seeming faint and slow. 
Shall alter and renew 
Their shape and hue 
Like birches white before the moon 



The New World 59 

Or the wild cherry-bough 

In spring or the round sea 

And shall pursue 

More ways of swiftness than the swallow dips 

Among and find more winds than ever blew 

The straining sails of unimpeded ships ! 

Mourn not ! . . . Yield only happy tears 
To deeper beauty than appears! 

Beauty is more than hands and face and eyes, 
Or the long curve that lies 
Upon a bed waiting, more than the rise 
Of sun among the birds, more than the oar that 

plies 
Under the moon for lovers, more than a tune 

that buys 
Pennies from time. Vision and touch comprise 
Yesterday's promise, today's token 
Of a fulfillment that shall have no need to be 

perceived or spoken. 
Wherein all love is the award 
Poured upon beauty and no heart is broken 
And no grief is stored. 

For never beauty dies 



6o The New World 

That lived. Nightly the skies 
Assemble, in stars, the light of hopeful eyes 
And daily brood on the communal breath — 
Which we call death. 

Nothing is lost. Nothing I have of loveli- 
ness 
Exceeds a minute part 

Of my own loveliness when it shall be fulfilled 
With CeHa's and all loveliness that lies 
In every heart. 

All that I have is but the start 
And the beginning, the bewildering guess 
Of what shall be distilled 
Out of my soul by you and you, 
Each soul of all souls, till one soul remains 
Which every beauty shall imbue 
Clean of the differences and pains. . . . 

I shall be Celia's everlastingness. 



IX 



A little hill among New Hampshire hills 
Touches more stars than any height I know. 
For there the whole earth — like a single 

being — fills 
And expands with heaven. 
It is the hill where Celia used to go 
To watch Monadnock and the miles that met 
In slow-ascending slopes of peace. 

She said : "When I am here, I find release 
From every petty debt I owe, 
The goods I bring with me increase, 
The ills are riven 
And blown away. And there remains a single 

debt 
Toward all the world for me, 
A single duty and one destiny." 

*'There shall be many births of God 
In this humanity," 

She said, ''and many crucifixions on the hills, 
Before we learn that where Christ trod 



62 The New World 

We all shall tread; and as he died to give 
Himself to us, we too shall die — and live." 
"Though slowly knowledge comes, yet in the 
birth 
Is joy," said Celia, ''joy 
As well as pain : 

The clear and clouded beauty of the earth. 
.... This I forget in cities. For cities are a 

great 
Impassable gate 

Of tumult. But by mountains and by seas I gain 
Path after path of peace." 

One evening Celia led me, late, 
Among the many whispers before rain, 
To touch and climb her hill again. 
I felt it rise invisible as fate, 
Not for the eye but for the soul to see. 
And when at last, among the oaks, we came 
Upon the top, a perfect voice 
Thrilled in the air like flame — 
Was it uprisen death we heard? 
Was it immortal youth, 
Out of the body, witnessing the truth. 
Attesting glory in an angel's voice? 



The New World 63 

Blindly we listened to the singer and the single 

strain 
Containing joy. 
And then the voice was still and all the world 

and we — 
Till *'Run," she said, "and bring him back to 

me!" 
I ran, I called . . . but in the nearing rain, 
No mortal answered, nothing stirred. 
Was it uprisen death we heard? 

.... Perhaps the hills and night 
Had made a prophet of some wandering boy, 
Prompting him in that instant to rejoice 
As never in his life before. 
He must have had his own delight 
As well in silence as in song; 
For, though we waited long. 
He sang no more. 

Afterward Celia said: "That voice we 
heard 
Singing among the oak-leaves, and then still, 
We cannot answer how it sings or how it comes 

and goes. . . . 
But only that its beauty ever grows 



64 The New World 

Within us both, in ways no voice has told. 
.... So let me be to you. When night has 

drawn its fold 
Of darkness and no word 
May reach your I eart from mine, 
Take then my love, my beauty! Hear me still 
When you are old 

And I am ageless as a changing hill! 
O hear me like that voice at night, 
Clearer than sound, nearer than sight, 
And let me be — as beauty is — divine !" 

There is a hill of hills 
That holds my heart on high and stills 
All other sound 
Than joy. 

Robins and thrushes, whip-poor-wills 
And morning-sparrows ring it round 
With echoes. Waterfalls abound 
And many streams convoy 
The breath of music. I have found 
A hill-path rising sudden on a city-street. 
Out of a quarrel, out of black despair, 
And climbed it with my winged feet. 
It hurries me above 



The New World 6^ 

All this illusion, all these ills, 

It rises quickly to the shining air. 

.... Celia, I hear you on the hill of hills. 

Announcing love. 



And O my citizen, perhaps the few 
Whom I shall tell of you 
Will see with me your beauty who are dead. 
Will hear with me your voice and what it said I 

Let but a line of mine, 
A single one. 
Be made to shine 

With your whole-heartedness as with the sun, 
And I shall so consign 

Your touch to younger and yet younger hands. 
That they shall carry beauty through more 

lands 
Than ever Helen laid her touch upon. 

In your new world I see 
The immigrants arriving from the ships. . . . 

O Celia, my democracy, 
My destiny. 
Beauty has had its answer on your lips ! 



